Cash For Clunkers “It’s not a stimulus.”
You can call it whatever you want … call it a banana … but its not a stimulus. To hear Juan Williams … it’s affirmation of all liberal philosophy. See what government can do? But, in fact it’s not. It is as Krauthammer points out … it’s nothing more than redistribution of income. It’s a great debate from last night and to be honest Juan comes off a little whiny. Listen and learn … oh and laugh.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSzRyrfeyFU
Now maybe people will learn the basic problems of entitlements: once started, they can't be stopped, their inequities, and their costs.
When is a clunker not a clunker? When it is an old beater Ford Fiesta for example. Even though it is a ****box, it used to get too good a mileage to qualify for the program.
Also, you will have a select class of people that got in early and got the money, but others, caught flatfooted when the program ran out of gas a mere week into the program, will demand their cut too.
Dealers will scream because when the spigot is cut off, the flow of customers will dry up with it.
Our grandchildren will scream because they will be paying taxes on our new cars.
People that should have stayed in their old, paid for cars will now have new debt to further drive them towards personal bankruptcy.
Congress = unintended consequences. Unfortunately, Congress never learns, and, as Santayana warned, repeat history to their own (and our) demise.
If they only weren't so damnably smug and self assured in their total ignorance and inexperience. (Listening, Dodd?)
Could be a banana or redistribution of income. What do the car dealers call it?
The Marxist economic model fails worse when it is not assembled within the authoritarian commands of dictatorship. The correct solution to the Cash for Clunkers program is to lower the rebate price to $2,000. In Cuba that is no problem, go ahead and disappoint the people. However, America has laws protecting consumers from bait and switch schemes and false advertising. Department stores are sued for advertising a cheap TV to lure you in, when only one TV is stocked on the shelf. The american way complicates the implimentation of a soviet system of doing business. There is a reason why that arm and hammer is a symbol of communism. As a baby toddler Karl Marx picked up a sledge hammer and pounded that square peg into a round hole.
To echo DonH's comments today in the chatroom, in a very real sense, this program is an anti-stimulus. The government is handing out money hand over fist and getting nothing in return — in fact, after paying out the "Cash for Clunkers" money, someone has to go out and pay to shred the car and dispose of the resulting waste material. This program will also have a disproportionate impact on the young and the poor, since they are the primary purchasers of used cars.
The demise of the banana is quick, then into the trash …..I'm just sayin'.
I thought that by having people buy cars (no matter what the incentive is), you'd deplete an "inventory", so more cars will be made, so people can have jobs that pay money to buy more cars/furniture/shoes…. I don't believe we're running out of used cars yet (plus as soon as one buys a new car it immediately becomes used).